The 2004 election demonstrated the power of the Internet. It’s now the YouTube campaign. The first victim was former Senator George Allen of Virginia. Here’s a hit on John McCain that’s now circulating: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioy90nF2anI By the way, thanks to my…

Re John and Elizabeth Edwards’ new home: The only thing they’re guilty of is over-answering. In situations like this, the less said, the better. Remember the first rule of getting out of a hole: Put down the shovel. It’s his…

Looking out the window as he gave his state of the city address, Mayor Meeker noted the four cranes hovering over his $221 million convention center, his $20 million downtown hotel and his $40 million underground parking lot. (News and…

In his State of the Union Speech, President Bush laid out his vision of the war on terrorism, saying Islamic Radicalism is an ideology – much like Communism and Nazism were ideologies in their times, opposing everything we stand for…

The right-wing, anti-school crowd lost in November when the Wake County school bonds won, but they’re taking aim again. One of our readers emailed: “Looks to me like the County Commissioners are trying to take over the school board –…

I consider myself an expert on strengthening executive offices, though some cynics might call it power-grabbing. I learned from the master: working with Governor Hunt when he passed succession in 1977 (before that, Governors could serve only one term) and…

A study by a local government agency in Raleigh reports that over a 15 year period (1991-2005) Wake County paid “about $186 million” a year in transportation taxes – while the DOT only spent “$132 million per year” to build…

Some pollsters have a gift for reading hundreds of pages of statistics and finding a nugget of truth. Others have a different talent: Flexibility. They can poll one day and say with absolute conviction the public is, for instance, adamantly…

A week ago the Mayor was saying he was going to run for reelection because he could do more as Mayor than as a United States Senator. Now (see Gary’s post below) he says the Mayor doesn’t have enough power.…

We hear that Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker will propose changing city government to give mayors more authority. He wants Raleigh to abandon its long-time “strong city manager” government and replace it with a “strong mayor” system. Sounds great. Many Meeker…